How Gen-X, -Y and -Z think about social business, and what the differences mean to you.

There are a lot of myths in the enterprise social software industry about generational differences in thinking. Opinions differ about how Generation X, Y and Z perceive enterprise social networking. This typecasting has, to some extent, moved the focus away from the more important issue: How each generation realizes the value of social business.

So why then do we slice and dice based on generations? Instead, we should think of enterprise social business through a usability lens where the audience is defined not on the basis of age but by role.

Typically an enterprise has three levels of management—Senior, Mid- and Entry- level. The three are divided by how each level is invested with respect to time, effort and money. In today’s dynamic work culture there’s a mix of generations and employees distributed across all the three levels based on fit and expertise.

A simple exercise of “a work day in the life of” a each management level can help us understand how each perceives social business and how realizing the value of enterprise social business is generation agnostic.

Below is an assessment of the core activities undertaken during a typical workday by people at these three levels.

I. SENIOR-LEVEL:

Below are some of the core activities a senior management individual is involved in a typical day at work.

Email Management: Since they are involved in all initiatives in the business they receive a large volume of emails daily — approximately 40% of their time is spent sorting and responding to emails.

Track Progress: They are involved in continuous meetings for problem solving, project updates and delegating work to employees — this activity again constitutes 40% of their work time.

Leadership/Mentorship: Motivate and empower employees to do better — performance evaluation and professional growth of employees accounts for roughly 20% of their work time.

So what’s in an ESN for them?

Case 1: Visibility/Virtual Hall Allows an executive to virtually “walk the halls” and get useful insights from everyone. They can track projects and employee progress without getting involved in long meetings with project managers and individual contributors. Each business initiative will have a dedicated subject with relevant conversations, shared documents, and daily updates so that executives get a single pane view across the organization.

Case 2: Motivate, Empower & Recognize Achieve improved employee engagement, a forum for recognition, and an alignment in organization culture. Executives can post shout-out messages to employees for contributing to a successful product release, or post a birthday message to an employee making him feel important, or engage employees with a poll to ask questions such as “What new features do you want to see in the product?”

II. MID-LEVEL:

Below are some of the core activities a mid-management individual is involved in a typical day at work.

Email Management: Writing and responding to customer requirements that are usually product/service related. They spent 30% of their time filtering through emails and responding to questions from direct reports, customers and senior management — in other words, it’s knowledge management done through emails.

Project and Task Management: Mid-level managers are more hands-on with their direct reports, who can be local or around the globe. They are fairly involved in the implementation of projects, while still playing a key role in guiding the process — they spend roughly 50% of their time coordinating with their team.

Hands-on Mentorship: Managing direct reports is not just about weekly reviews and tracking progress. It’s about one-on-one interactions to monitor growth, measure goals and mentor direct reports — this activity constitutes 20% of their time.

So what’s in an ESN for them?

Case 1: Getting distributed teams together Everyone — from different departments, locations and time zones — collaborates on a single platform. People working on the same project are part of a common Subject to share conversations and status updates. This results in improved productivity company-wide.

Case 2: Knowledge Sharing Clarify questions, concerns and share best practices with entry-level individuals. Instead of going back and forth via emails where messages get lost, ESN can help provide contextual information to everyone who needs it.

III. ENTRY-LEVEL:

Below are some of the core activities an entry level individual is involved in a typical day at work.

Project Implementation: A majority of their time is involved in getting work done for multiple projects. Work ranges from concept evaluation to content creation. This sometimes requires bringing together expert advice or contributions. Moreover, timelines and milestones attached to each project constitute roughly 60% of their time at work.

Idea Generation: Apart from just accomplishing project tasks, these individuals spend 30% of their time researching and learning new skills/tools for better problem solving. Some projects may require expertise outside their purview for which they need to think out of the box. Administration and Communication: The remaining 10% of their time constitutes creating reports, providing daily updates and communicating with team members and other business stakeholders to close loops.

So what’s in an ESN for them?

Case 1: Idea generation/Gather feedback Get your voice heard — ESNs provide an open platform to express your thoughts and generate ideas. The ability to share ideas and collaborate with a diverse group of intellectual people allows improved innovation and more successful products and services.

Case 2: Ease of access to subject matter experts Harness the wisdom of collective intelligence. In times of ambiguity and confusion—”Where do I get answers to my questions?”, “Who in the organization can direct me to the appropriate solution?”—ESNs break those barriers to access expert advice.